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U.S. plans to deploy radar site in Japan to bolster defense

The U.S. announced plans on Thursday to deploy a second TPY-2 radar site in the Kyoto prefecture in Japan to protect against North Korean ballistic missiles, according to the U.S. State Department.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced the plans during a 2+2 meeting in Japan. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera were also on hand for the meeting. The point of the meeting was to review U.S.-Japan bilateral defense guidelines, which were last revised in 1997.

"Given the changes that have taken place in the world, just the challenges of cyberspace, the challenges of counterterrorism, it is highly valuable to be undertaking this reevaluation and setting the roadmap for the next 15 to 20 years, and that is precisely what we, I think, have achieved here today," Kerry said.

Hagel said one priority of the meeting was missile defense, given the threat posed by North Korea's ballistic missiles to the U.S., Japan, the region and the world.

"Today, we announced our plans to deploy a second TPY-2 radar site in the key Kyoto prefecture," Hagel said. "This additional radar will bolster our ability to defend the U.S. homeland and in Japan against North Korean ballistic missiles, and it enhances an important 21st century alliance capability."

During the meeting, Kerry reiterated that the U.S. would be willing to negotiate with North Korea if the country is prepared to take action toward denuclearization.

"With respect to North Korea, North Korea is a nation that has behaved outside of any standards of rule of law and any of the norms of international behavior," Kerry said. "And North Korea needs to understand that the United States of America is prepared to engage in negotiations, providing North Korea makes it clear that those negotiations begin with the issue of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula."